Steve Jobs’ Greatest Technology Triumphs

When Steve Jobs announced his resignation from Apple on Wednesday, it didn't just bring an end to his long reign as CEO of the company he co-founded. It also closed the book on one of the greatest legacies of innovation the technology industry has ever witnessed.

Jobs isn't just a savvy businessman, he's a visionary who made it his mission to humanize personal computing, rewriting the rules of user experience design, hardware design and software design. His actions reverberated across industry lines: He shook up the music business, dragged the wireless carriers into the boxing ring, changed the way software is sold and forever altered the language of computer interfaces. Along the way, he built Apple up into one of the most valuable corporations in the world.

What a run.

As we look back at Steve's greatest hits, the big question is: Will Apple be able to continue the string of successes Jobs leaves in his wake?

Apple II, 1977

Apple Computer was founded on April 1, 1976 by Jobs, engineer Steve Wozniak and industry vet Ronald Wayne, who was brought in to provide "adult supervision."

Apple's first computers were kits sold to hobbyists, but the slowly expanding company hit the jackpot one year later with 1977's Apple II. Hackers took to it because of its expandability, schools used it to teach programming (it ran Integer BASIC) and offices started snatching them up once VisiCalc launched on the nascent platform.

Macintosh, 1984

The Macintosh arrived in 1984, and it was the first computer to successfully integrate two things that are now commonplace: a graphical user interface and a mouse. Little pictures of folders, the piece of paper denoting a file, the trash can -- most of us learned how all of these things worked when we sat down at the Mac. Drag-and-drop, too.

Apple launched the Macintosh with a massive media campaign spearheaded by a minute-long TV commercial (riffing on Orwell's 1984) that aired during the Super Bowl.

iMac, 1998

After the success of the Macintosh, Jobs was marginalized by Apple's board of directors, so he left to found the software company NeXT. Without Jobs at the helm, Apple floundered through the early 1990s. A series of missteps eventually caused the company's market share to fall into the low single digits.

Jobs came back in 1996 and, two years later, released a complete re-write of the desktop PC -- the candy-colored iMac. It kicked the boring beige PC box to the curb, and it marked the debut of the revolutionary all-in-one design that's still used by today's iMac (and widely copied by other PC manufacturers).

iPod, 2001

The first iPod was a $400 MP3 player with a 5-gigabyte hard drive and a mechanical scroll wheel that didn't sync to Windows machines. Not a very likely candidate for the device that would completely change the music industry.

But it did, pouring fuel on the fire of online mayhem lit by Napster and creating a mindset among music device buyers where ease-of-use, convenience and sex appeal trump all other features.

The iPod's all-white design was minimalist compared to other players that came before, and, more importantly, the user interface was remarkably easy for anyone who picked it up to figure out.

The hardware had its quirks -- if you got sand in the scroll wheel, you'd get stuck listening to The Spin Doctors all day -- but it was quickly refined to incorporate further innovations: the touch-wheel, a color screen for watching videos and eventually, the industry-standard touchscreen.

Mac OS X, 2001

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1996, he ordered a re-think the Mac's native operating system. Eventually surfacing in 2001, Mac OS X was a complete departure from earlier Mac operating systems and, as Jobs had promised, a true "next generation" OS.

It appealed to novices fluent in Windows (enabling the craze of "switching") but it retained enough of its Unix guts and enough of Apple's well-established interface conventions to keep the Apple geeks interested.

iTunes Store, 2003

iTunes was the first hint at Jobs' vision to turn the home PC into a "digital lifestyle hub." That plan was cemented in 2003 by the debut of the iTunes Store. Suddenly, it wasn't just about creating or collecting media, but purchasing it, too.

And because it was directly plugged into the iPods everyone already owned, the iTunes Store was a huge hit. With it came the era came the era of the single, easily downloadable for $0.99 and offering instant satisfaction.

Of course, the record companies weren't happy to see their monopoly on distribution challenged. But traditional retail tapered while iTunes exploded. Tower Records folded. Virgin Megastores were boarded up. By 2007, Apple was selling 5 million songs a day.

iPhone, 2007

During his keynote address at Macworld 2007, Jobs said Apple would announce three things: "A widescreen iPod with touch controls, a revolutionary mobile phone and a breakthrough internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator." Of course, it was all three of those things in one -- the iPhone.

Four and a half years on, Apple's phone has not only completely changed our expectations of how a smartphone should look, feel and behave, but Jobs' famous wrangling with the wireless carriers has toppled the long-standing power structure in the industry.

Before Apple, carriers insisted on controlling the hardware and software on their phones. Now, if they want the hottest phones, the carriers have to play ball.

App Store, iPhone SDK, 2008

The next time you're in an Apple Store, take a look at that constantly shrinking shelf of boxed software. Smells like 2007, right?

With the arrival of the iPhone SDK in 2008, developers could create their own native apps for the iPhone and sell them through the App Store built into iTunes. This not only set up a clean, centralized distribution model for apps, but also introduced a budget-minded pricing structure — $1 and $2 apps — that encouraged you to download as many apps as you wanted. It was a boon for developers.

Unfortunately, it also earned Apple the title of "Gatekeeper," souring relationships with developers who were suddenly subjected to the company's arcane app approval guidelines.

But the damage is done. Today, it's all about apps.

iPad 2010

It's the device everyone wanted Apple to create, even though most of us weren't sure how it was going to fit into our lives once it got here. But Jobs got sentimental when showing off the first iPad in 2010. He said it was a culmination of years of work, starting with OS X, then iTunes, then the iPhone, then the App Store.

The shockwaves are still evident more than a year later as manufacturers race to catch up, pumping out their own tablets. But they can't match Apple's success.

With the iPad 2, Steve Jobs can retire knowing he went out on top, crossing the finish line well ahead of everyone else.